As skills-based hiring becomes increasingly popular, Pollak adds, women have better chances of landing jobs in tech, finance and other high-paying industries that they might not have been eligible for five years ago.
“All of these small changes reduce discrimination in hiring and directly benefit women,” Pollak notes.
Another recent change that’s helped mothers and caregivers return to full-time work is improved access to child care, a critical sector that has struggled with hiring shortages since the start of the pandemic.
Although child-care employment has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, hiring has “steadily increased” in most states, a recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found.
Ruth Thomas, a pay equity analyst at PayScale, says that the proliferation of pay transparency laws is another crucial piece that is helping close the gender wage gap. “Mandating upfront disclosures allows women to know whether or not a job offer is fair, and target workplaces that genuinely support equal pay,” she says.
Although the latest numbers are encouraging, there’s still “a lot more work to do” in terms of identifying the specific factors that allow the gender pay gap to exist at all, Thomas adds.
“We’re making slow progress on salary transparency and child care, but beyond that, what else is left to fix to close the pay gap?” she says. “That’s the bit employers seem to be struggling with.”
